Sea Of Thieves The Journey To Melee Island Guide

The first of three Monkey Island crossover Tall Tales is as puzzling as the classic LucasArts series itself.

By Mark Delaney on July 21, 2023 at 5:05AM PDT

Sea of Thieves and Monkey Island have finally crossed over, giving fans the pirate collaboration they've been dreaming of for a long time. In the first of three Tall Tales to come, The Journey to Melee Island, you'll dock on the titular island villa for the first time, soak in the local culture, do battle with some ghostly ne'er-do-wells, and, of course, meet Guybrush Threepwood himself. This Tall Tale plays much like a classic Monkey Island game, which means its puzzles and progression can be a bit confusing. Use our guide to work out what to do and all earn all 16 Commendations, 10 Memoir Spots, and two exclusive ship cosmetics along the way.

The mission features 16 Commendations, half of which can be missed if you don't go out of your way to complete them. We've left asterisks next to those you can miss. Use this as a handy out-of-game checklist:

To launch the mission, you'll want to look for Captain Capsize's camp at any outpost. She won't be far from where you'd start the Disney Pirates missions, and if you prefer, you can enter the game so that you spawn directly in front of her (rather than in the nearby tavern) by choosing the Monkey Island option from the main menu. Look beside her for a book that allows you to vote on the voyage like any other Tall Tale and a cinematic will begin in which she and the Pirate Lord tell you to find Guybrush Threepwood. A green portal will then open nearby at sea, so raise anchor and set sail to pass through it.

When you come out the other side, you'll dock at Melee Island, complete with the Monkey Island series' original music and the classic purple moonlight overlooking the tall spire at the heart of the island. Step off your ship and you'll find you have the whole of the island--sans the Governor's mansion--available to explore. While the next several steps could, in some cases, be completed in a few different orders, we've formatted this walkthrough based on what we see as the optimal route through the mission.

Inside the Scumm Bar, you can speak to several NPCs can be spoken to, and many of them will give you small hints as to what to do, so even with this guide it's good to chat and make sense of your surroundings. From the chef, you'll learn he's waiting on a newly hired assistant. This will be especially important soon. Also be sure to exhaust all four dialogue options with Spiffy the dog (and keep checking back for two more: after you give him his toy and after you’ve unlocked Corina’s shop), as you'll want to hear all six of his replies, not all of which are available yet at this point in the mission. Lastly, be sure to interact with one of Guybrush Threepwood's campaign posters to earn a related Commendation.

Head through town all the way to the end where you'll enter a small jail featuring two locked cells. You can't get in for now but take the claw hammer off the table and carry it back to the docks.

Just off the dock, you can see a shipwreck sticking out of the water. Leave the claw hammer on the dock, then jump into the water where you'll notice a big box of cargo roped to a palette. Two of the ropes are threadbare, so cut them off using your sword, then return to the dock.

Using the winch and pulley system on the dock, align the winch so it's above the cargo crate, then lower it so it connects to the crate. Lift up the crate and drop it onto the dock.

Now using your claw hammer, you can open the crate and find a box of goods the street merchant is waiting on. To find him, simply head into town like you did for the jail, where you'll see him on your right after a corner. His shop was closed until he had his cargo, so give it to him and he'll start selling goods. You won't have enough money for anything yet though.

Scattered on top of barrels, inside some crates, and on tables, you'll find the local currency, Pieces o' Eight. You'll need to disguise yourself as the chef's new assistant, and for that uniform you'll need 45 Pieces o' Eight. There appear to be no extra coins lying around, so be sure to scour over every barrel and in every alley until you have 45 total.

For a few added hiding spots, be sure to climb to the Lookout atop the spire, and distract the watchman so you can swipe his pouch of coins. There's also quite a few coins in the jail and in the church.

Once you have 45 coins, head to the general store and buy the chef's uniform, then equip it using the clothing chest in the right-back corner of the store.

Wearing the new outfit, return to speak to the chef, who assumes you're his new coworker. He'll go on break, leaving you to make a stew. You need not worry about the ingredients list so much, as you can't mess it up. Simply adding each item found in the kitchen, plus one caught red herring fish from outside, will finish the stew. For you though, you merely need the hunk of meat that sticks out of the boiling pot. However, before you leave, you could perform one other step in the bar.

Since you "work" for the kitchen now, you have access to the patrons' preferred extra-potent grog. Fill your tankard with it and serve it to every patron waiting for it in the bar. There are three overall. They will all fall asleep, letting you swipe the coin purses from two of them and the clocktower key from another.

Leave the clocktower key somewhere you won't lose it, then bring the meat to the alleyway behind the church where a ghost is tormenting some piranha poodles. Leave the meat in their bowl, and they'll eat it and find the courage to attack their tormentor. He'll be destroyed, leaving behind a jumbled skeleton and some Gunpowder Gummies on the bench.

Grab the pair of gummies, then leave them in the jail, as you'll eventually use both there.

Thanks to the sleeping patrons you stole from, you should have already collected the next batch of money you need, but double check here that you have 130 coins, as you'll be buying two items totaling this amount.

The general store is selling rope, so buy that and bring it to the jail, leaving it there for now with the gummies. Then buy the monkey toy from the street merchant.

Bring the monkey toy to the dog, who will prefer it to the bone he wouldn't drop earlier. Be sure to speak to him again after to hear more dialogue options that work toward the related Commendation. Take the bone and exit the bar.

The bones aren't money, but they are valuable. With the bone in hand, return to the alleyway with the skeleton in shambles, and connect the bone you brought with you. Then go grab the clocktower key from where you left it.

The guard blocking the Governor's mansion jokes that he won't let you pass until the clock strikes midnight. He says this knowing the clock is broken, but with the clocktower key you can fix it. Enter the clocktower, remove the bones lodged in the gears, then use the ship wheel to set the clock to midnight. On your way out, take the bones from here, too. If you speak to the guard again in this period, he'll tell you that even though the clock struck midnight, he can't leave until his shift replacement arrives. But that's precisely who you're building in the alleyway.

With these new bones in your hand, bring them again to the skeleton in the alley and again connect them to the rest of the body.

The skeleton will still be missing two more parts, including a head, but you'll work toward both of them in the jail. Head there next and get ready to blow open both jail cells. You can do this in either order using the same method. Take a gummy candy and insert it into the lock. Then connect the rope to the gummy, acting as a fuse. Take out your lantern, hold it up (using LT on controller), and light the end of the rope.

When the fire reaches the gummy, the door will explode open. Remember, you have enough rope and gummies to do this to both doors, and you must do exactly that.

You'll need just one more piece--the head--after you take the bones from the jail cell and connect them to the skeleton in the alley.

When you free Otis from the jail cell on the left, he will leave behind his friend, Captain Coco, a coconut with a face engraved on it. Take Captain Coco to the bar.

Head to where the talking skulls are decorating the wall and replace Murray with Captain Coco. This allows you to exit the bar with Murray in tow. To earn the Commendation to bring Murray to nine key spots around the island, you'll need to delay connecting him to the skeleton and first bring him to the following nine spots. Note that you need to trigger his voice line in each spot for it to count, and sometimes he's talking about other things, so be sure to pause in each area long enough for him to directly comment on the location.

Once you've earned the Commendation, you can then safely attach Murray to the rest of the body in the alley, thus completing the building project.

Murray, if we can call him that in a Ship of Theseus sort of way, will then help you by walking to the guard blocking the mansion, swapping places with him, and letting you pass. You've now got access to the mansion!

You can head right into the mansion, and the doors atop the stairs will be locked, but after several increasingly aggressive knocks, you'll smash through them and into the room to meet Guybrush Threepwood, the titular Legend of Monkey Island. He'll give you a quick and rehearsed speech about his heroics, surely embellishing some of them, then promptly pass out.

There are three coin purses in the mansion that total 200 coins. You'll want to collect these to earn the optional Commendation that asks you to buy the Melee Island history book from the street merchant. You can find the coins in the following three places inside the mansion:

Open the curtains in the bedroom, then remove the bedsheets in the bedroom to the left of Guybrush. Under the bedsheets, you'll also find a note and a key. The key opens the chest at the foot of the bed.

Once you open the chest and discover four fizzy root beer bottles, a familiar foe will appear outside the mansion. Oh hi, LeChuck. He'll taunt you and reveal himself to have been the one disguised as The Pirate Lord in Adventure 12, A Dark Deception earlier this summer. He'll then send a swarm of ghosts after you. It's time to fight.

Using LT to shake the bottle and make it fizzy and RT to spray it, cover at least 10 ghosts in root beer to blow them up and earn a related Commendation. You can also defeat them with traditional weapons, but, honestly, we never did. We preferred soda. After about four or five waves of enemies who may spawn all over town, you'll have won the battle and returned the island to normal…for now.

Previously guarded by the ghosts you just defeated, Corina's voodoo shop will now be accessible. Head inside with a root beer bottle and drop it into the cauldron in the middle of the room. Corina will appear and give you another cinematic.

She'll also warn that you've got more work to do, and to return to her when you're all set. This is because you still may want to earn the Commendation for visiting all 10 Memoir Spots in the mission, as well as the one for buying the Melee Island history book. To do that, take your 200 coins from the mansion and return to the street merchant.

These are seating arrangements that, in first-person, resemble scenes from classic Monkey Island games. You'll need to sit in designated seating positions and listen to Guybrush's memories at the following 10 locations to earn this Commendation, and it should be your last one other than those which you earn for completing the mission:

We've included pictures for all 10 so you can easily find the spots yourself. The trick is they are always beside small red ink bottles, except for one extra tricky one atop a building across the street from a church. To access this spot, you head up the clocktower and over the rooftops until you reach the spot you see in the image.

Once you've finished off that list, you should be ready to complete the mission, so return to Corina and activate the ending. If you finish the mission and complete all Commendations along the way, you'll have unlocked both Captain's ship cosmetics, so flaunt them if you've got them. That completes the first Monkey Island Tall Tale in Sea of Thieves.

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